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Hong Kong elections: long delay in vote counting mars city’s first ‘patriots-only’ polls under Beijing overhaul
- Senior officials laud elections as an important milestone for city to start over and reform governance after 2019 protests
- Vote counting of over 4,380 ballots begins after delay but results still not completed after 10 hours
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Hong Kong’s first critical election under the Beijing-decreed electoral overhaul on Sunday hit a major snag as a delay in vote counting overnight prompted candidates to demand answers on why it took over 10 hours for the full results when only 4,380 ballot papers had to be tallied.
Electoral Affairs Commission chairman Barnabas Fung Wah apologised for the delay and admitted the process of delivering the ballot boxes and vote counting was “unsatisfactory”.
“At this stage, I can say they were human errors or errors of judgement on whether the problem should be sort of raised to us or to be solved by the frontline staff,” Fung said at a press briefing at 6.15 am on Monday.
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“We will look into the matter thoroughly. I think it may not be fair to pinpoint anyone in particular. I’ll ask you to wait for the election report.”
At 6am on Monday, 12 hours after voting came to a close, results of only 10 out of 13 subsectors in the Election Committee which required competition had been announced.
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The candidate area in the vote counting centre at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai was largely empty as most of the hopefuls had left for home amid the delay.
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